Banh Mi – Where to, Gumshoe?

Hanoi/Luang Prabang (Day 115): Vietnam Doesn’t Want us to Leave!

June 23, 2016

Today we were flying to Luang Prabang, Laos at 6:50pm, so we had a pretty full day in Hanoi before we had to go to the airport. We had a leisurely and large breakfast upstairs. I ordered Vietnamese fried rice and it was a lot larger than I expected, so that was basically our early lunch.

After breakfast we went back to our room and started to book flights and some hotels for our last 3 weeks on the road. We’ll be going to Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Phu Quoc before making our way back to Saigon (then home!). We’ve booked all our flights until KL, we’ll do the rest in the next couple of days.

Since we didn’t have to leave for the airport until later in the afternoon, we asked for a late check out and we didn’t head out into town until 1pm. I think if we asked for even later they probably would’ve given it to us. The staff at the hotel was really accommodating!

We finally checked out and headed out for lunch. We hadn’t eaten any food in Hanoi that we really wanted to have again, so it made deciding what to eat for lunch a bit challenging. Tim is always down for eating more banh mi so we decided to try to find a new place.

We walked through the old town and close to Hoan Kiem lake to see what we could find. We found a Banh Mi shop called, Banh Mi Pho Cho. It looked promising. We ordered two sandwiches and took a seat. I ordered a roasted pork sandwich and Tim had the classic deli meats and pate banh mi. Both our sandwiches were pretty mediocre. I can see now why Banh Mi 25 is supposedly the best banh mi in Hanoi, there isn’t that much competition for good banh mi in Hanoi’s old town.

We walked through old town and decided to go to Cong Caphe to escape the heat for a bit. We are usually indoors during mid-afternoon so it was especially draining being in the sun during mid-day. We wanted to go to Cong Caphe since we weren’t going to be having it again (unless Saigon has one, but we may not have time to go). We ordered a coconut coffee and a frozen lemonade (the exact order we had the first time we went). Both were delicious as usual and we got to spend some time watching over Hanoi’s hectic streets.

We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake, which was nice because it was mostly shaded by all the trees. After we made a loop around the lake, we made our way back to the hotel to cool down a bit before the car took us to the airport. The hotel manager and staff were nice and gave us cold towels (seeing how much we were sweating) and cold juice while we waited for our car. The manager also gave us a Vietnamese lacquered plate as a souvenir – that was really nice of him. Then about 5 minutes later he asked us if we would write a review on Trip Advisor for them. I was going to write one for them any way, but for a small business, I can see how good reviews on Trip Advisor are basically their life blood if they’re in the tourism industry. I told him that’s how I found this hotel, through Trip Advisor, so obviously I was going to pay it forward.

Right at 4:30pm, our car came to pick us up and we said bye to all the staff at the hotel. It took about half an hour to get from Old Town to the airport. There’s a lot of traffic trying to get out of the city, but once you get on the highway it’s smooth sailing.

We arrived at the international terminal and it was a lot nicer than Hanoi’s domestic terminal – mainly because it’s newer. The airport was pretty dead. There were a few flights leaving for Seoul, Taipei, and Hong Kong. The Lao Airline counter was not busy at all. It seems like the majority of the passengers on this flight to Luang Prabang are westerners and only about 10% Laotian.

Once we got through security and Vietnamese exiting customs, we walked around the departures terminal and ended up getting Popeye’s for late lunch/early dinner. The international terminal prices are all in USD and are a lot more expensive than the domestic terminal.

As we neared our boarding time, we weren’t boarding and I knew our flight was going to be delayed. Sure enough, we heard an announcement saying that our flight was delayed from 6:50pm to 7:10pm. Then 7:10pm quickly came and went and we still hadn’t boarded. Another announcement came on saying that the flight has been delayed to 8:40pm due to technical issues. They gave us a small sandwich and some water, which was probably what we should’ve eaten on board as our dinner. We finally boarded close to 9pm.

The plane was pretty small. It’s the type of plane you would fly from Vancouver to Seattle (Tim: Actually, it was an ATR 72 and I think it’s bigger than any plane I’ve been on from Vancouver to Seattle). The flight time to Luang Prabang is only an hour and a half (thankfully). When we arrived at the airport, we were the only flight that was there. It seemed like the only people working at the airport were the customs officers.

Laos requires a visa upon arrival so we tried to walk faster than the majority of the plane since we knew that 90% of the plane would need a visa. Depending on what country you’re from, you have to pay any where between $30 USD – $42 USD for the visa. Lucky for us, Canada is the only country that is $42! Even Afghanistan is $40 USD. Most other western countries are $30 USD. There was a big chart at the visa line with a list of all countries and their prices. Since we landed after normal work hours, it was an extra $1 USD to process. We had passport pictures printed at Costco before we left for the Laotian and Cambodian visas, but had we known that it would only cost an extra $1 USD for them to just photocopy a picture for you, we may have considered that.

After the visa line we took our passports to the customs line. They were having technical difficulties with their computers so we had to wait longer in that line. Finally, we got through, grabbed our bags and the hotel car was waiting for us outside. Lucky our hotel had free airport transfer because there were no cabs or tuk tuks around at all.

We’re staying at “Le Bel Air Boutique Resort“, which is about 5km away from the airport. We couldn’t see much in the dark but Luang Prabang seemed very quaint and quiet as there weren’t many scooters or cars on the street at night. The hotel looked very Thai or I guess very Laotian. The reception and restaurant area are all open air and each room is in its own villa area. We were brought to our room and were pretty surprised at how nice and large the room was. We’re lucky it’s down season because they had a “stay 3 nights, pay for 2” promotion, so we’re paying $60 CAD/night. Hotels in Laos aren’t as cheap as Vietnam.

After a really long day, we washed up and went to bed. Both really looking forward to exploring the city more tomorrow!

Steps today: 11,000

Hanoi (Day 109): Hello from the Capital!

June 17, 2016

We set our alarms for 6am, so we could have a quick breakfast at the hotel before we made our way to the airport for our 8:10 flight to Hanoi. I read a lot of good reviews about the hotel’s breakfast buffet so I was looking forward to trying it, even if it was a quick breakfast.

Breakfast at the Orange Hotel was served on the top floor (seems pretty common for hotels here to have their restaurants on the top level). We’re not early birds so we were quite surprised at how many people were there for breakfast at 6:30am. The breakfast spread was pretty impressive and nicely laid out. As we were leaving they were bringing out more food and even some crepes!

We took a cab to the airport and it cost 61,000 VND = $3.50 CAD (15,000 VND of that was the ticket it costs for cars to go into the airport area). When we got to the Vietnam Airlines check in counter, there was quite a long line, but it went quickly. I was a bit nervous because we were cutting it pretty close, but when I saw people were still checking in for 7:45am flights it made me feel better. There’s not much in the Da Nang domestic terminal. Some souvenir shops and a “Calvin Klein Nike” store. I’ve never seen fake stores at airports before!

We went to our gate and had to take a shuttle from the gate to the plane. The flight to Hanoi was a larger plane (Tim: A330) than what we took to Danang and it was quite full. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:10am, but we didn’t leave until around 8:40am. The flight to Hanoi was only an hour, so we landed at the scheduled time.

While sitting on the plane, we were surrounded by a couple of men who had to clear the phlegm in their throats every 5 minutes (it seemed). It wasn’t a very pleasant environment. I’m looking forward to being back home in a month.

We arrived in Hanoi and it was overcast and only 29°C (we haven’t been below 30°C in a while). Once we got our luggage, the hotel driver was waiting for us at arrivals. Hanoi’s international airport is about a 30 minute drive from Hanoi’s Old Quarter/City Centre. The highway into the city seemed newly paved and there wasn’t much traffic. It was only until we got close to the city’s core that Hanoi seemed more like any other city in Vietnam. The Old Quarter’s streets had a more small town feeling to them than the streets in Saigon.

When the car got close to our hotel, three hotel staff members came out and greeted us and took our bags. The hotel’s entrance was in a small alley so cars can’t go through. We’re staying at the Golden Moon Suites & Travel Hotel for $31 CAD/night. They gave us welcome drinks, a cold towel, and bananas. Since we got in so early and check in time wasn’t supposed to be until 2pm, they said our room probably wouldn’t be ready until 1pm. We said that was fine and asked for the WiFi password and sat on the couch for a bit before we headed out for lunch. I guess since we were sitting there for a while regrouping, the manager said they actually have a room ready for us now.

The room was clean and nice enough for the price (also includes breakfast this time). The only complaint is that the internet is a bit inconsistent – which makes streaming or FaceTiming choppy. We dropped off our bags, changed, and headed out for lunch.

For lunch we walked to a restaurant, called Xôi Yến, in the Old Quarter that is well known for their sticky rice (Tim’s friend Michael recommended it and Bourdain ate here too). When we arrived at Xôi Yến, we saw there was a Cong Caphe across the street. This was the second location we’ve seen in Hanoi so far, so if we’re craving the coconut coffee, we have options!

At Xoi Yen, you pick the type of sticky rice and you can choose to add toppings to it, such as: chicken, pork, deli meat, eggs, the list goes on. We both ordered a bowl of the sticky rice with “fried shallots and fat”. I ordered grilled pork (char siu) and Tim ordered the boiled shredded chicken. The bowls came compactly filled with sticky rice, a layer of mung bean paste (that we thought tasted like a layer of baked yams), and fried shallots. The rice and toppings were tasty, but I didn’t ration my meat well with the rice so I had almost half my rice left without any toppings. If you know me, I only really eat my rice if it has something to go with it. It’s very filling lunch and I didn’t finish my rice and Tim was too full to eat mine. I would go back to try other toppings but I wasn’t that biggest fan.

After lunch, we grabbed a quick snack to bring back to the hotel for later at Circle K and walked back to the hotel. I had a pretty bad headache and the sun was at its peak for the day, so we went back to our room and rested. I ended up taking a nap and felt a lot better in the late afternoon.

For dinner, we had a few options in mind but wanted to just find something fairly close by. I looked up some options on Trip Advisor and found a banh mi stall, Banh Mi 25, that was very well reviewed by the majority. The pictures made the stall seem very trendy – they even had branded stickers for their paper wrapping. When we got there, the crowd was mainly caucasian tourists, which was expected since it seemed the stall catered to tourists as their menu was in English. The prices were fair, so we decided to give it a shot (ranged from 15,000 VND to 25,000 VND). Tim ordered a pate banh mi (he wanted ham as well but they were out since it was the end of the day) and I ordered the grilled pork with pate. The girls working were nice and friendly and we grabbed a seat and waited for our banh mi.

When we took our first few bites, we both looked at each other and recalled one of the negative reviews from a guy from Seattle saying that there’s not much flavour in the meat or the vegetables (not pickled enough). We agreed that there wasn’t much going on in this banh mi besides the bread being good. They had hot sauce on the table and we both added a lot to get more flavour out of the sandwich. It was the most underwhelming banh mi we’ve had so far in Vietnam. I guess it gets pretty good reviews because it’s like banh mi for beginners, since the environment is very friendly and comfortable (everyone was very nice!).

We headed back towards the hotel and bought some lychees from a lady on the street for our dessert. There was a lady ahead of us on a scooter who bought 1kg for 50,000 VND = $2.88 CAD and we bought 25,000 VND = $1.44 CAD worth. They were delicious and sweet (lychee is one of my favourite fruits), we put them in the fridge before we dug into them.

We had another chill night, watching part 3 of the OJ Simpson documentary and then got to FaceTime Nate for his birthday! It’s funny, he doesn’t even know it’s his birthday. Can’t wait to celebrate with him again when we’re back home!

Steps today: 8,500

Hoi An (Day 106): Pool, Tailors, and Ancient Town

June 14, 2016

Today we woke up feeling a lot better than yesterday. We had an easy morning since we had until noon before checking out and when our hotel in Hoi An was going to pick us up. We went up to the roof for breakfast earlier and it was naturally a lot busier. The roof at Hadana has 360 views of Da Nang (Tim: more like 270), which is quite nice. Since the air conditioning inside isn’t that strong, it didn’t make much of a difference to eat outside under an umbrella.

The breakfast at Hadana Boutique Hotel was okay. There are a lot of Vietnamese breakfast options, which are good, but nothing really seemed that appetizing to us. We both had a bowl of noodles, which tasted like borsch soup with rice noodles. We headed back to our room after breakfast, packed up, and waited for our car to come.

We’re staying at Villa Orchid Garden Riverside Hotel (it’s confusing because there are a lot of hotels that have orchid, garden, and/or villa in its name) and paying $36 CAD/night. We booked a car through them to pick us up from Da Nang to bring us to Hoi An. We read that taking a public bus is uncomfortable and the drivers will try to charge you more and even threaten to kick you off the bus if you don’t pay more. We opted for the more comfortable option and just went with the hotel’s car for $19 USD for a 30 minute ride.

The hotel driver picked us up in a Toyota Forerunner SUV right on time. I think the hotel just contracts out drivers and they don’t work exclusively for them. He didn’t speak any English and didn’t really smile or anything. It was a bit awkward and he was a pretty crazy/impatient driver. On the way to Hoi An, we drove along the beach rode (the one we walked on yesterday) and drove past all the fancy beach resorts.

We arrived at the hotel and were told to wait to be checked in. The lady at reception was with another group that was checking in so we had to wait. We were seated on the patio and given cold ginger tea and a fresh banana pancake while we waited. The hotel is very quaint and is right on the Thu Bon River. When it was our turn to check in, the lady at reception gave us a run through of Hoi An and what there was to see, restaurants to try, and safety tips.

We were shown to our room and it was pretty nice for what we’re paying. The room was nicely air conditioned, clean, and it had an outdoor washroom. There is a nice pool in the courtyard of the hotel, which is where we spent a good chunk of the afternoon. Weather today was another balmy 38°C so we didn’t want to make our way towards Hoi An’s Ancient Town (or Old Town) until later in the afternoon since we planned on seeing the town at night.

At around 4pm we got ready and headed towards Hoi An’s main area. We walked along the river for about 20 minutes before getting into the heart of the city. Hoi An has a very small town feel to it, especially as we were walking along the river, it was fairly quiet and calm. But once we got into the Ancient Town, it was pretty packed with tourists and backpackers.

Our first stop was Banh Mi Phuong, a place famous in Hoi An for being the best banh mi in the city. It became internationally known when Anthony Bourdain came here on an old No Reservations episode to Vietnam and he had a banh mi with a fried egg on it. They have a picture of Bourdain there but they don’t clearly show what sandwich he had (Tim: The picture looks like a paused screenshot from a youtube clip). I think the banh mi he had isn’t even an option on the menu, it’s basically a banh mi with everything on it (including a fried egg). I tried the BBQ pork banh mi and Tim ordered the ham and pate (both were 20,000 VND = $1.15 CAD). We sat inside and ate our very late lunch. I really enjoyed the banh mi. The bread was very good (shaped differently than the other ones we’ve had before) and there was a bit of spice to the sauce they put in which was quite tasty. The BBQ pork had crackling on it, so it was like the Chinese roasted pork with all the good banh mi toppings, which was delicious. I like how they also drizzle sauce directly on the bread after they spread the pate on the bottom. While we were eating, we saw a lot of locals buy bags on the banh mi to go.

The next order of business in Hoi An was to browse around at the tailors in town to see if we could get something made. We had a few places in mind that were recommended by Chloe, the hotel, and TripAdvisor. The first one we saw was called Be Be Tailors. It is rated second on Trip Advisor and also recommended by the girl at the hotel. I read online that they are one of the more pricey tailors and they don’t bargain. We sat down for a quick consultation and their prices were quite high, even for North American standards. The lady at the hotel was right, they don’t bargain. Since the price wasn’t in our budget and the ladies weren’t that friendly or very helpful, we left.

We headed down the road to Peace Tailors (who Chloe used last year). When we arrived they were quite busy with other clients – this is probably a good sign! We were helped by one of the sisters (most of the ladies are sisters apparently and are all super nice) and I showed her a picture of a dress I liked. She brought us upstairs to show us the fabric they had to choose from. I picked the fabric and got measured (which was probably pretty gross since I was sweating so much). Tim then decided to look into buying a suit for himself. He decided to get a navy blue suit, since he doesn’t have one and it’ll be good for summer weddings (the only time Tim wears suits). They took Tim’s measurements and they said to come back tomorrow around 4pm for a fitting. We’ll see how it goes!

After spending a good chunk of time at Peace Tailors, it was dark out and we made our way into the Ancient Town. I enjoyed the Ancient Town because scooters and cars were not allowed to drive! It was also really pretty at night because there were so many lanterns and lights around the town. You could pay to make a wish and put a lantern with a candle into the river. We walked through the nightmarket that surrounded the river and browsed through all the souvenirs and knick knacks. We’ll come back during the day so we can see all the buildings in the light.

Since we had the banh mi quite late, we weren’t really hungry, just really thirsty. We had already drank all the water we brought out with us so we bought a few drinks while we were out. For dinner, we decided to just get banh mi again from Phuong’s and bring it back to the hotel to eat. I ordered the same thing and Tim ordered a sausage banh mi.

As usual, when we got back to the hotel, we were so hot and sweaty so the first thing we did was take a cold shower. We watched a few episodes of the shows Tim downloaded and the O.J. Simpson (Tim: 30 for 30) documentary before we slept.

Steps today: 13,000

Ho Chi Minh City (Day 99): War Remnants Museum, Banh Mi, and Pho

June 7, 2016

Wow! It’s already been 99 days since we’ve gone. Feels like we should do something special to celebrate our 100th day tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to the Mekong Delta area and staying in Can Tho for a couple of nights before coming back to HCMC.

This morning we got ready, grabbed coffee and juice from downstairs and something quick to eat, and went to find the breakfast stall that Chloe had recommended that served “com tam” (broken rice with grilled pork chop). She told us the stall closes around 10am so we should try to go early just in case. We didn’t make it out early enough because by the time we got there around 9:30am, we didn’t see a stall. We’ll try again tomorrow morning and go earlier. After our failed attempt at getting com tam, we walked to the War Remnants Museum.

The admission fee for the War Remnants Museum was 15,000 VND = $0.85 CAD/person. We spent about 2 hours at the museum going through each of the exhibit rooms and looking at all the photographs captured from the war. I enjoyed looking through the photographs and reading more about the photographers who went to Vietnam to document the Vietnam War. It’s very sad that the majority of them died while capturing photographs that we get to see today (Tim: Lots of photo descriptions include the note “last roll of film” as they came from the photographers’ cameras after they recovered their bodies). About half of the photographs were directly attributed to specific photographers and included their original comments that went with the photos when they were first published. These comments were fairly neutral for the most part. The remainder of the photographs had commentary written by the musem that was very anti-American. My least favourite room was the Agent Orange room which had dead baby fetuses in jars on display. The pictures of all who had been and are affected by Agent Orange was devastating, but I think having the jars of dead baby fetuses was a bit too much. I saw them from the corner of my eye and walked the other way.

While we were still looking around an announcement came on saying the museum would be closing at 12pm and would reopen at 1:30pm. We didn’t realize the museum closed midday, but it did sound like something that would happen since I read that Vietnamese people take lunch very seriously.

Since it was lunch time for everyone else, we decided to have lunch too. We walked to a banh mi stall, Banh Mi Sau Minh, that was recommended by one of Tim’s friends who said it was the best sandwich he’s ever had (Tim: and I take his recommendations seriously). With testimonials like that, it would be an insult not to give it a try ourselves. There were two banh mi sandwiches listed on their menu so we ordered one of each. The owner was really nice and gave us two bottles of a lychee gatorade type of drink and he said it was “no money”. Maybe it was because we looked super sweaty and dehydrated to him.

We took our sandwiches to go and ate in the park we passed by earlier in the day. It was nice and shaded and there were benches all over to sit. In one of the banh mi, he spread “laughing cow” cheese on the bread. It was different but complimented all the Vietnamese deli meat well. As we were just sitting on the bench enjoying the shade, huge gusts of wind swept through the park and all of a sudden it started to pour really hard. We opened up our umbrellas and headed back to the hotel. Even with umbrellas we were both pretty soaked.

We dried off and did a bit of planning for our upcoming few days. With the help from the lady downstairs, we booked our bus ticket to Can Tho (3.5 hour bus ride). The rain continued to come down really hard and we could hear lightning from our room. We headed out for an early dinner to try out another banh mi for our appetizer and finally had pho!

We read online that Banh Mi Hyunh Hoa is one of the more famous/popular banh mi shops in HCMC. It’s pretty close to our hotel and only a street over from the place we went to last night for dinner. We tried to walk by after the park earlier in the day but they didn’t open until 2:30pm (close at midnight). This time, we passed by and they were open. The shop had tons of scooters out front ordering sandwiches for dinner. We ordered one to share and stood across the street under cover while we ate. This banh mi was definitely more hefty than the other ones we had. It had a lot of different meats in it and we could feel the heat from the pickled chili peppers. I think this one was my favourite so far. It was most similar to the ones we have at home. So far, the banh mi that we’ve had so far didn’t have as many pickled vegetables and cilantro as I would like. 2 days in and we’ve had 4 fairly different banh mis already – so delicious!

We walked another 10 minutes in the rain in search of Pho Thanh Chanh. It was recommended by Chloe and also on one of the pho lists that Tim’s cousin, Nick, sent to us. It was also the closest one on that pho list to us so we went there.

Pho Thanh Chanh is a family run restaurant, which I’m guessing the majority of the restaurants in Vietnam are. The Mom is out front preparing bowls of pho and her daughter (probably 15 years old) takes orders and cuts up the limes and chilis, and her two younger sons (probably around 12 years old) deliver the pho to tables. Since we were eating quite early, the boys looked like they just got off school as they went to the back room, got changed and put on an apron. Tim ordered two bowls of the house special (dac biet) pho, one of the few terms Tim knows in Vietnamese. The soup and meat were all very delicious. There was a really good ratio of noodles, meat and broth.

We headed back to the hotel for the night and are continuing to plan out parts the upcoming month. I’m looking forward to seeing the Mekong Delta, experiencing more of the Vietnamese countryside, and getting out of the big city for a couple of days. I really like walking around cities but walking around HCMC gives me slight anxiety. Why don’t scooters and cars obey the cross walks?

Steps today: 14,000

Ho Chi Minh City (Day 98): Independence Palace, Street Food, and Sweat

June 6, 2016

When you get one whiff of scooter exhaust, incense, and ripe tropical fruit all at once, you know exactly where you are – in SE Asia. It’s our first time in Vietnam so we’re both pretty excited to explore the country. Our last trip to SE Asia was a two week trip to Thailand 3 years ago and we both really loved it. We’ll see what Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos do for us.

All we could hear from our room were cars and constant honking. If you’re a light sleeper, HCMC is probably not ideal. It seems as though cars and scooters are really liberal with the horn. We fell asleep quite early last night and woke up naturally to the sounds on the street. We thought it was at least 9am, but it was only 5:30am! I guess we’re a bit jetlagged.

We get free breakfast at the hotel so we went downstairs shortly after it opened at 7am. The breakfast was self serve and had congee, fried noodles, sauteed green beans, bacon, sausage, fried eggs, toast, and passionfruit. I also had a cup of coffee with condensed milk. I usually don’t drink coffee but I really like Vietnamese iced coffee. The breakfast was better than I expected.

We left the hotel and walked towards Independence Palace (or also known as the Reunification Palace). As soon as we walked outside we could feel the heat and we started to sweat. Crossing the street in HCMC is a bit scary. Even if you have a right of way with a green crossing light, in HCMC, you don’t have the right of way. Basically whenever we crossed the street today, Tim would be on the side to block me from oncoming traffic and I would just hang on tight. Even when cars see pedestrians walking they just weave around you dangerously and scooters don’t stop on red lights. This is something I have to get used to. Bangkok was way more orderly in that way (in comparing SE Asian big cities). I don’t remember being scared for my life while crossing the street in Thailand. This feels more like China in that sense.

After about a 10 minute walk, we made it to the Independence Palace, which was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. At the end of the Vietnam War, a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the palace in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon on April 30.

Entrance into the grounds and building is 30,000 VND = $1.75 CAD per person. The palace is kept the way it was when Saigon fell to the North, which made it really interesting to walk around. It felt like we were stuck in the 1960’s. While walking around, there were a lot of Vietnamese tourists taking pictures posing in front of many of the rooms. I was thinking that if I were south Vietnamese, it would be a bit sad walking around what the palace used to be given it’s only been 41 years since the fall of Saigon. The sentiment from the commentary plaques around the palace was that the south was very grateful for being saved by the north from the Americans. But obviously we have to take those opinions with a grain of salt being in a single-party communist country.

The bunker area felt a bit eerie while walking around as there weren’t as many tourists in the basement while we were there. The palace was bombed during the war so the bunker was built in the palace basement by the Americans for the President. While walking through the palace, it made me want to read more about the Vietnam War since I don’t know as much about it as WWII. We’ll be going to the War Remnants Museum tomorrow and spending time learning more about the war.

After the palace, we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral and checked out the Saigon Central Post Office. Our plan for lunch was to walk about 30 minutes to the Lunch Lady food stall that Anthony Bourdain went to on one of his episodes in Vietnam. We (I) was really hungry when we were at the palace so we went for a snack at Popeye’s across the street from Notre Dame. We shared a meal, and the chicken was super juicy and delicious. The air con also felt heavenly. The crowds for lunch were starting to build up. The prices at Popeyes are a bit cheaper than North American prices but quite expensive for Vietnam.

After a pretty hot walk through the city, we made it to the Lunch Lady. It was about 1pm, so the lunch crowd dissipated but the ground was covered with napkins and shrimp heads (remnants of previous lunchers). We sat down on slightly grimy plastic chairs and ordered two bowls of noodles. The lunch lady makes a different soup every day of the week and usually closes when she sells out. Today’s soup was a sweet and sour tom yum type of soup (called Bun Thai) with lai fun (round rice noodles), seafood, and beef. While waiting for our noodles, people kept trying to put food on our table without us asking but we just said no to everything. We read from reviews that they’ll put food on your table and you obviously have to pay for them unless you say no.

The soup was really good, I could see why Bourdain enjoyed his meal here so much. When we paid, the guy said it was 80,000 VND =$4.60 CAD for our two bowls. This is slightly more than what we thought it would be (we’ve adjusted super quickly since Australia) since Lonely Planet says street food is usually only 20,000-30,000 VND for a bowl of pho. Any how, when you convert it to Canadian, you realize how cheap it is. At first I thought we were charged more because we were tourists but I read online that 40,000 VND is right. They do have a smaller sized bowl that locals know as an option for 30,000 VND, but majority of tourists are just given the larger bowl.

On our way back from lunch, we came across a cam sanh (green peel Vietnamese orange) juice cart that had two scooters waiting for their order. The ladies on the scooter ordered 5, they drank 2 on the spot and took the rest to go. They smiled at us and gave us the thumbs up after Tim gave them an inquisitive thumbs up, so we ordered one to share. We asked how much it was and the lady said it was 10,000 VND = $0.55 CAD. This is one of the main reasons why I love SE Asia – cheap fruit and fruit juices. After she told us the price, the ladies conversed in Vietnamese. Tim joked around and said maybe they asked her why she didn’t charge us more. She gave us the local prices and we saw the ladies pay 50,000 VND for their 5 drinks (Tim: I think Kait would enjoy herself more if she didn’t think everyone was trying to rip her off :P).

We walked towards Dong Khoi, which is one of the nicest areas in Ho Chi Minh. It’s where the Opera House, City Hall, and all the luxury stores and hotels are. We walked down the large boulevard in the middle of the street towards the Saigon River. When we got to the Saigon River, the walkway along the river wasn’t very attractive nor was there much going on so we kind of took a peek and walked towards a market.

On the walk back, we stopped by Ben Thanh Market. Luckily we did because as soon as we walked in there was a huge downpour and we would’ve gotten drenched. The market was full of rows of t-shirts, purses, backpacks, coffee, fruit, and accessories. The vendors are pretty aggressive when you walk through each aisle. Even if you’re not looking at anything at their stall, they’ll try to pull you to look. Tim was wearing his Under Armour t-shirt and it seemed like all the vendors we passed by keyed in on it and showed him what other t-shirts they had that were Under Armour. We were curious about their pricing so we asked about a purse and they quoted us 750,000 VND and we said we weren’t interested. Then they knocked it down to 500,000, then to 400,000 and when we started to walk away they said 100,000! So basically we’re guessing that the prices they’re willing to take are 10% of their initial quote.

When we passed by the food vendor area, Tim asked me if I wanted something to drink. The ladies in all the stalls got up and grabbed my arm and stuck their menus in our faces. All their fruit juices were 20,000 VND = $1.15 CAD and I guess knowing that we got our juice for 10,000 VND, I wasn’t interested. When we got back to the hotel and I typed in the conversion and realized it was only $1.15 CAD, I felt super cheap.

The rain died down so we headed back to the hotel to relax and get out of the crazy heat. We both were super sticky when we got into the room, it was actually pretty disgusting. We heard some Aussies at the market say how they’re sweating so much that it’s dripping in their eye and making it burn. That’s how we felt!

I searched online for “the best banh mi” in HCMC and wrote down a couple of places to try out. There was one only about 5 minutes away from us so we decided to give that a try for dinner. They closed at 8pm so we were cutting it a bit close at 7:30pm. We had to cross another crazy roundabout intersection to get there, which was scary at night. Luckily there were a few more people walking so we just used them as buffers.

The Banh Mi cart was called Banh Mi 37 Nguyen Trai. They specialized in a banh mis with grilled pork patties. When we got to the stall, there were several people infront of us waiting for their sandwiches. The bottle neck was the grill as they were waiting for the pork to cook. After about 20 minutes of watching the pork cook and the lady assembling sandwiches for others ahead of us, we got ours. After ours, there were only 4 more baguettes left and she had to turn away a lot of people who were coming after us. We felt pretty lucky! The banh mis were 18,000 VND = $1.03 CAD each. It started to rain while we were waiting so we took our banh mis back to the hotel to eat.

The banh mis were delicious but a bit spicy. I haven’t had a banh mi with grilled pork patty before, so it was nice and different. Instead of mayo, she put a thick brown sauce that was a bit sweet on top of the meat, along with pickled cucumber and lots of cilantro. There’s a more famous banh mi place down down the block that we’ll probably try another day.

Steps today: 23,000